The Chinese giant will invest $800M in on-demand delivery platform Dada Group, which will see the e-commerce group own around 51 per cent of Dada.
The investment comes at a time when JD.com is spinning off its logistics business. The in-house delivery network gave JD.com a competitive advantage over Alibaba Group, JD.com’s larger rival business.
In 2016, JD merged its online-to-offline unit, JD Daojia with Dada to become Dada-JD Daoija, a Chinese online grocery and delivery firm. In 2018 this firm then went on to raise $500M from Walmart Inc and JD.com.
When the deal was announced on Monday, JD.com also agreed not to sell, transfer or dispose of any shares purchased in the deal for six months after the closing. US-listed shares of Dada jumped by as much as 19 per cent, while those for JD.com were up by 0.5 per cent in trading.
